Baldur's Gate 3 Companion System Revealed! The Brilliant Design Philosophy of Less Is More

What impressed me most wasn’t how much affinity increased, but that Baldur’s Gate 3 turned “trust” directly into a playable threshold. If trust is high enough, a single word from you and your companion follows along; if it isn’t, you have to honestly roll the dice to persuade them. It’s a brilliant design, like stitching the relationship system together with the core skill-check mechanics at the heart of CRPGs.

Recently, Baldur’s Gate 3 writer Kevin VanOrd spoke with Edge magazine and specifically discussed the thinking behind this “companion approval” system. The core idea is actually very clear: on one hand, players need a great deal of freedom of choice; on the other, companions can’t be written as bland utility characters with no edge to them. And that’s exactly where many RPGs tend to stumble. Either teammates are too obedient, like accessories hanging off your backpack, or their reactions are too rigid, like a wall in the story.

Kevin VanOrd mentioned that the feedback in the companion system depends entirely on player behavior. What you do determines how they see you. I really like this approach, because instead of simply popping up a “+5 approval” number, it tries to let each character’s personality come through in the feedback itself. The “approve/disapprove” prompt in the game is a classic example. It uses very little, yet quickly tells you what this person responds to—and what they don’t.

What’s interesting is that the development team also candidly admitted they couldn’t possibly make every character respond fully to every situation. Otherwise, the project’s scope would spiral out of control. It sounds very practical, even a bit like the kind of trade-off logic common in indie games: focus limited resources on the places most likely to create memorable experiences, rather than blindly chasing a “we want it all” approach. Judging from the result, this design really did find a balance between player expectations and development costs.

But unfortunately, some parts never made it into the final game. Kevin VanOrd also mentioned that beyond the romance system, the team originally wanted to add a friendship system, with special events between characters similar to dates. I genuinely think that idea sounds fantastic. Not every player wants to steer every relationship toward romance; pure camaraderie, the feeling of being partners who truly understand each other, can sometimes be even more moving—something like the layered intimacy in Hades, built up slowly through events.

He also said outright: “I wish I could have done more for Wyll.” That line actually says a lot. Even in a work with such a high level of completion, there can still be regrets in character writing. Especially for a human companion like Wyll, who relies even more on the depth of the text and the arrangement of story events—if he had gotten a bit more content, the character might have felt even more fully realized.

If you still haven’t picked up the PC version, the information at the end of the article says the post-coupon price for the official version is ¥288.00, while the listed price is ¥298.00. For something of this scale and level of polish, it’s still absolutely worth it. It’s especially suited to players who enjoy companion interactions and meaningful choice feedback. If what you care about more is the sheer thrill of combat, it may not hit as directly as a pure tactical RPG; but if you enjoy that quintessential RPG feeling of “I made a decision, and my companions will actually remember it,” then Baldur’s Gate 3 remains a title that’s very hard to ignore.

To me, the most valuable part of this interview wasn’t that it told everyone what was done, but that it explained why they couldn’t do more. In an era where big-budget games increasingly chase “infinite content,” that kind of restraint feels precious. Creativity isn’t about making the feature list as long as possible; it’s about whether, within limited expression, you can truly make players feel that the characters are alive. On that front, Baldur’s Gate 3 is still incredibly strong.